The Sisters - Hardcover

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Author)

A New York Times Summer Book We're Looking Forward To
One of Vulture's Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer

"[The Sisters] generates every kind of heat . . . If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you." --Tess Gunty, National Book Award-winning author of The Rabbit Hutch

"A classic story about sibling rivalry . . . One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage." --Fredrik Backman, The New Yorker

"Astonishing . . . Every character--every sentence--is startlingly, indubitably alive." --Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies

"Captivating and so full of life--one of those books you live inside and miss when it's over." --Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost and The Parisian

An addictively entertaining family saga by a National Book Award finalist.

Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Their mother is a Tunisian carpet seller, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, a shape-shifting presence, quick to anger.

Ina meets her future husband when she's dragged to a New Year's rave by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life.

Following the sisters from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. Over the course of three decades, his life intersects with the sisters, from a chance encounter in Tunis to the scene of a fighter jet crash in Stockholm. When Evelyn disappears on a trip to New York, Jonas manages to track her down--and helps her to break the curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for decades. In the process, a shocking revelation changes everything about who they think they are.

Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, Jonas Hassen Khemiri's The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order--an addictively entertaining tour de force.

Author Biography

Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Invasion! won an Obie Award for best script. Khemiri is the recipient of a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. The Sisters is his first book to be written in English. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family and teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.